Louise Bourgeois: Unconscious Memories is the first Roman exhibition of work by the French-American artist, who was one of the most influential of the last century.
Conceived by Cloé Perrone and curated with Geraldine Leardi and Philip Larratt-Smith, the exhibition, produced in collaboration with The Easton Foundation and the Academy of France - Villa Medici, focuses on Bourgeois’ great contribution to sculpture and the deep connection between her artistic practice and the Galleria Borghese.
Louise Bourgeois: Unconscious Memories interweaves the artist’s personal memory with the collective memory of the public museum: the exhibition route passes through several rooms of the Museum, the Aviary and the Meridiana Garden, a place that Bourgeois explored with admiration during her first visit to Rome in 1967.
About 20 sculptural works are in dialogue with the unique architecture of the Casino Borghese and its collection, focusing on themes of metamorphosis, memory, and the expression of emotional and psychological states. These themes, also explored by artists in the Borghese collection, are invigorated by Bourgeois’ contemporary lens, which offers new perspectives on the human experience, thanks in part to her extraordinary diversity of forms, material, and scale, allowing her to express a range of emotional states.
Louise Bourgeois’ seven decade-long artistic career significantly advanced critical discussions of contemporary art, incorporating the themes of psychoanalysis and feminism that have since become central. In the1960s, after a period of intense psychoanalysis, she began working with biomorphic forms, experimenting with latex, plaster, wax and other materials. In the early1990s she presented her first group of Cells, self-contained structures, some resembling rooms, composed of sculpted elements, found objects, and items she had kept throughout her life.
Works made with fabric are from the last fifteen years of her career.
Bourgeois’ relationship with Italy and the Borghese collection significantly influenced her creative practice. Her encounter with the Borghese collection began with art history studies at the Louvre in the late 1930s and deepened between 1967 and 1972, with sojourns in Pietrasanta, Carrara, and other cities in the region, where she worked in various studios and created numerous works in bronze and marble.
All images are © The Easton Foundation/Licensed bySIAE2024andVAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Ph.by A.Osio
Louise Bourgeois Unconscious Memories from June 21st– September 15th, 2024
Piazzale Scipione Borghese, Rome
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